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We embrace the process of transformation in Christ, both in ourselves and in others, through the practice of Centering Prayer.

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The Work of Spiritual Discipline

Series:

Love Matters

Week:

41

Love Matters are wisdom words from Fr. Thomas Keating spoken during the filming of the new series God is Love: The Heart of All Creation. Some are included in the series; others are from footage published here for the first time. A new word will be posted every Monday throughout the year. May they serve to inspire hope and lift your heart.

All of the disciplines as far as I can see in any religion are aimed in one way or another to moderate or balance or reduce the exaggerations so that we are not compulsively or still more addictively programmed to act in such a way that everybody knows what we’re going to do before we open our mouth. What do you do with this? Submit to some kind of practice of virtue that would enable them to flatten the playing field and that so that they could introduce into their nervous system and brain new ways of reacting that are more profound, grown up and open to the possibility. We’re made for happiness and everybody even when they do wrong things are basically still looking for happiness. It’s just in the wrong place. Or, they’re compulsively or habitually programmed to act that way. So, this is where the work of discipline as a preliminary to surrendering to God is essential. And this involves not only some moderation in our own ways of responding to reality but also in our relationships with other people. Keeping in mind that the species is so inter-connected that as Paul says of the Mystical Body which is really the human species if you can extend it a little farther than theology does. What someone else suffers in some way is affecting us. And their virtues are also supporting us in ways that are invisible.